What has been your experience with marathon sessions?

[ranjit]

I'm sure you all would have tried at some point to spend like 6 hours a day on something (learning a piece, sight reading, etc). Do you think it was useful?

[ted]

I have often wondered about that myself. Around the age of twenty I used to have many such marathon sessions. There was no need or pressure to do it, I was not studying music or playing it in a professional capacity, I was just determined to play difficult pieces and acquire certain difficult techniques. I was successful in that, but it is impossible to prove that long sessions had anything to do with it. That was fifty-five years ago and I am inclined now to think that I could have gone about things a good deal more sensibly and attained the same results if not better ones.   

[brogers70]

I'm sure you all would have tried at some point to spend like 6 hours a day on something (learning a piece, sight reading, etc). Do you think it was useful?

When I was a teenager I sometimes spent six hours a day on the weekends sight reading classical guitar. I ended up being a pretty good sight reader. I never did that on the piano and I'm having to work pretty hard to get my piano sight reading up to snuff. Maybe it's a difference in practicing, but maybe it's a difference between being a teenager and being an old fogey.

[lelle]

I wouldn't do it as an intentional strategy. I don't know if I have ever done a six hour session, but probably three hours. Negatives with marathon sessions is that you simply wear yourself out and become less efficient. Brain tired, body tired, easier to form bad habits.

[trickybily]

The most I've played was 6 hours. I think it was beneficial. Usually I practice 3-4 hours a day as an amateur adult learner.